When is the right time to do something, make a change, embark on a course of action? It’s something we have all agonised over at some point in our lives. Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we don’t.
There are times when doing something isn’t the problem, the issue is the timing of when we choose to do it. We can be too early, we can be too late.
This is something the channel is all too aware of. All those years of being in the middle of the vendor and customer gives partners (or should give partners) a perspective on when the latest release from the vendor can be realistically adopted by the customer.
That’s what ‘trusted adviser’ is supposed to mean. The partner is trusted by the customer to advise, recommend and implement technology at the optimum time for the customer. The partner is also ‘trusted’ to have the knowledge and expertise as a partner of ‘vendor X’ to implement the technology optimally for the customer.
This is not a position without potential friction. Sometimes, the vendor’s timetable for selling its technology is not in sync with the customer’s schedule for buying it. The product may well be ready (not always a given) but the need is not clear. Vendors may believe they have something that customers want but they may not have convinced them it’s something they need. The push from the vendor doesn’t always match the timing of the pull from the customer. Assuming there is a pull.
In this context, Damovo’s field CTO, Ruarí O’Shaughnessy, had some interesting comments regarding the recent introduction of Microsoft 365 E7, its first new enterprise licensing tier in over a decade. E7 – aka The Frontier Suite – bundles E5, Microsoft Copilot, Entra Suite and Agent 365 into a single licence priced at $99 per user per month, compared to approximately $117 if the components were purchased separately.
Seller beware
Before we get to O’Shaughnessy’s comments, can I just say that I imagine a common reaction to anything with ‘frontier’ in the title might not be to rush out and buy it.
Describing E7 as “the next architectural layer in the same family [E3 and E5] Microsoft has been building for over a decade”, he added: “Buying into E7 today means buying into a roadmap, not a completed product.”
He warned that, for many organisations, “E7 is currently over-licensed, over-bundled and prematurely timed, The commercial cost is real and the technology foundations need to be in place before the value can be realised”. In his words, the focus should be on the outcome the customer is looking for rather than selling the licence. Customers need to know what E7 means for them and when they will need it.
But the potential for misalignment between something that is ready and something that is needed exists where partners reliant on recurring licence revenue could come under pressure to persuade customers to adopt E7 to boost that revenue. It’s also worth bearing in mind that while E7 offers a discount on the per user price for all the products bundled together, it doesn’t include agents, which are paid for based on a consumption model. That’s not always the easiest cost to forecast and everyone knows how hard it can be to calculate if the value will be equal to the spend.
According to O’Shaughnessy, early adoption of E7 makes sense for some customers, for example those already on E5 “with mature identity, consistent conditional access and strong Teams adoption; if you have clear, high-value agent use cases in areas like finance, service operations or security; and if you have the budget and intent to scale AI consumption, then a small, targeted E7 pilot is worth running”.
He suggests that E7 will be more attractive in two or three years time.
This brings us back to where we started. It’s surely common sense not to jump on something straightaway just because it’s new. Sometimes, it pays to wait. That’s not always easy for anybody, be they vendor, partner or customer. As Tom Petty acknowledged, “the waiting is the hardest part”. But sometimes, for most of us, it’s the only thing there is.
Ltd
